


Side By Side

by bexacaust



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23725513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexacaust/pseuds/bexacaust
Summary: I’m like a son that was raised without a father~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Oh, I’m still alive
Relationships: Brainstorm/Perceptor (Transformers)
Kudos: 24





	Side By Side

“There are simply some things I cannot push past, Brainstorm!”

“No one’s asking you to push past ANYTHING, I’m asking you to please just let me HELP YOU.”

Perceptor rolled his optic, turning away with a scoff to return to the world of numbers and comparisons he’d hidden in longer than he cared to remember, “I don’t need HELP, Brainstorm, I need peace and bloody QUIET-”

“You’ve had silence for YEARS, PERCEPTOR. YEARS. IT HASN’T HELPED YET, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT WILL?!”

“IT ALWAYS HAS!”, he barked back, his face twisting into a scowl as his hands twitched in reaction to his temper beginning to boil, “I THINK BETTER IN THE QUIET, I WORK BETTER IN THE QUIET, I’M BETTER WHEN IT’S QUIET!”

“AND WHEN IT’S QUIET, YOU PANIC!”

“I DO NOT!”

Brainstorm made a noise of annoyance, gripping his own helm for a moment as his wings angrily flapped once; heralding the glare he shot towards Perceptor’s back, “You’re so FULL OF IT, Percy. SO. FULL. OF IT.”

Perceptor whirled, his scowl a snarl now, “AND JUST WHERE DO YOU GET OFF SAYING THAT, HM?!”

“BECAUSE I WAS THERE WHEN YOU CAME HOME.”

The silence fell over them suddenly- a thunderclap with no sonic boom, a tornado with no backlight of wailing sirens. Brainstorm stood tall with his hands at his sides and curled into fists as his scowl melted away to show worry. Concern. Sympathy.

“Percy, I was THERE when you came home; when you came back to Kimia from the Wreckers. I was there after Garrus 9 and I saw what you’d become.”

“… Are you suggesting I had become le-”

“No, you IDIOT. This isn’t about whatever worth you tried to ascribe yourself based on your stupid weapons or your dead-eye shots or your killcount you never even WANTED. I’m talking about YOU. How YOU acted when you came home, what you did. What you said, all of it.”

Perceptor swallowed, clearing his throat afterwards and schooling his expression into typical stoic coldness. He flexed his still twitching hands, mulled over the things he could say- the answers to the pity he told himself was radiating in Brainstorm’s field.

“You changed, Percy. You changed and you and I had to get used to a new kind of Us. You never craved the quiet until you lived through gunfire. You never wanted silence until you had nightmares about screaming. You never wanted peace until your spark got sh-”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t say your spark got shot to hell? Don’t say you nearly DIED on a Con warship?”, said Brainstorm, the words spat at his lab partner like the bullets once dodged, “That’s what happened, Perceptor. You DIED, you survived, and then you went to hell while you still had a pulse. That’s what happened.”

Perceptor remained silent.

“And you came home DIFFERENT. You didn’t come home as Percy, you came home as Perceptor… And I understand why. I get it, I do.”

“How the hell could you GET IT?”, hissed Perceptor, “Don’t fake all this pity like I’m going to believe it- you got to stay on Kimia; you never had to walk amongst that DEATH SQUAD they called a unit, you never had to smell burnt bodies or see Overlord’s face or-”

The sound of rattling chhestplates opening, and Perceptor looked up in shock- the air caught in his vents as Brainstorm stared at him, into him; and the jet’s chestplates sat open to show the patch welds and mismatched cabling. The spark flickering as it spun with it’s hitched orbit and tilted axis and Perceptor put a hand over his own crystalline chest covering.

“Percy. Percy I am an MTO. You KNOW what that means. I’m an assembly line abomination, I’m barely a real person to people. I onlined IN THE WAR. I was born under flying bullets. I Know. More. Than. You. Think.”

the jet’s chestplates closed again, jittering into place. A hardness edged his expression as he walked up to Perceptor and stood face to face with the sniper.

“I am not here to PITY you, god no. Out of anyone I’d know how much that hurts- how much the pathetic little stares and shoulder pats burn after it’s all said and done.”

Perceptor looked away, wincing at the sting of Brainstorm’s razorblade eloquence.

“What I am saying is I want to HELP you. Because Percy? You aren’t alright. You aren’t, and that’s okay. Let’s be not alright together, and maybe we’ll get to okay some day.”

A hand on Perceptor’s shoulder that didn’t feel like a weight for once, “You’re still breathing, and so am I. And when that gets hard, and when the nightmares come back- we can be there. With each other. We both were thrown into the deep end and came back and found each other- this time instead of letting them toss us in again, let’s help each other tread water.”

Perceptor finally looked back to Brainstorm, his lipplates twitching as his pride and his fear fought for control of his voice.

Brainstorm chuckled, the harsh lines melting away into something calmly chaotic, gently sympathetic.

“We’re alive, and we’ll help each other stay that way, alright?”

Perceptor nodded, his hand moving to cover Branstorm’s hand, “I… I can live with that.”


End file.
